Chapter 4
As you write your ten-minute play, you will find it useful to know certain basic points of playwriting. I believe that the information in this chapter will be especially helpful to those who have never written a play before, although experienced playwrights may find it informative, too. What follows are some rules that apply to all plays, long and short.
• Conflict—Conflict is the essence of a play. The stronger the conflict, the more engaging your play will be. Character one wants something. Character two will do everything in his or her power to block character one from getting it. When that happens, we have conflict. Weak conflicts make for boring plays. Make the stakes high and you have a good chance of creating an engaging play.
• Character—Characters are the people who populate your play. Their personalities, their history, and their desires are expressed in the dialogue; i.e., what the characters say to each other. Your characters want something; in acting terms that’s called “intention.” Actors are taught that by discovering what the character needs you’ll discover how you might play the character. The way the characters speak, what their lives are like, their family, and most importantly what they want, should all be taken into account when making playing choices.
• The Protagonist—This is the main character we will be following in your play, the one who wants something and runs into a conflict in attempting to get it. As in life, not all protagonists get what they want. Sometimes they discover that that pot of gold they’ve desperately been seeking is not at all what they thought it would be. It’s how the character evolves in the play that is most interesting, the journey, so to speak. The character should be different at the end of the play than at the beginning. The knowledge the protagonist gains during the play changes him or her. The challenges, the obstacles that the protagonist overcomes (or doesn’t) help to determine how he or she will change. Self-awareness comes from overcoming or attempting to overcome the challenges and obstacles.
• The Antagonist—To create conflict you must have an antagonist, or opposing force: something or someone must get in the way of the protagonist, blocking his or her path toward the goal. The antagonist can be another character in the play, an event, or an obstacle confronting the protagonist. The two forces going up against each other create the conflict in the play. The stronger the conflict of these two opposing forces, the more interesting your play will be.
• Stage Directions—These are the instructions a playwright includes in the script to let the actors and the director know what action is occurring during the scene. The best advice I can give is to use them as little as possible. Just include specific actions that must be addressed to make the play work efficiently. Some playwrights include way too many stage directions; save that for your screenplays.
• Setting—This is where and when your play takes place. It may include the furniture you must have in the scene or a doorway or window if needed. The setting may also be an indicator of the style of the play you’re writing. Remember that this is theater, and try to keep it simple. Don’t create scenes or sets that are not stage worthy. Some beginning writers create elaborate sets and scenes that might work better in film than on the stage. Again, with the ten-minute play, less is more. If your play is part of a ten-minute play festival, having too much furniture will impede moving on to the next play after yours is over. On some occasions plays have not been selected, or are eliminated from ten-minute play festivals, because of their set requirements.
The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384–322 B.C.E.) wrote two books on aesthetics: The Poetics and Rhetoric. The Poetics is the earliest work of dramatic theory and originally addressed both comedy and tragedy, though the book on comedy has been lost. The surviving book deals with tragedy, which Aristotle felt was the “most refined version of poetry dealing with lofty ideals.”
While the following information on dramatic theory is highly condensed, it may serve as a starting point for those who wish to read further; and I believe some of this information may be of use in creating your ten-minute play.
Aristotle believed tragedy should be mimetic (a good imitation), serious, and a good length; that it should contain rhythm and harmony; and that the rhythm and harmony should appear in various combinations as the story evolved. He believed that tragedy was meant to be performed, not narrated, and that through catharsis it should purge feelings of pity and fear that had been aroused earlier in the telling of the story.
In his Poetics, Aristotle said that unified plot structure is formed like a triangle. It begins with the protasis, or the introduction, in the lower left-hand corner of the triangle. The highest point of the triangle is called the epitasis, or middle, which is the crisis, and in the lower right-hand corner of the triangle is the resolution of the conflict, which he called the catastrophe.
Aristotle broke down tragedy into six elements: plot, character, thought, diction, melody and spectacle.
• Plot. The plot should have a beginning that isn’t a consequence of any previous action, a middle that grows logically from the beginning, and an end that logically flows from the middle and from which “no further action should necessarily follow.” All the scenes in a play should be linked together by “probability and necessity.”
• Character. The character supports the plot; in other words, the characters’ personal motivation will impact the cause and effect chain of action. These events should create “pity and fear in the audience.” The protagonist, who Aristotle felt should be well respected and wealthy, changes due to “a great error” or “a frailty in his character.” Each character in a play should have a distinct personality, age, appearance, beliefs, socioeconomic background, and language.
• Thought. While Aristotle doesn’t explain what he means by this term, he does say that “speeches should reveal character.”
• Diction is “the expression of the meaning in words” that are proper and appropriate to the plot, characters, and end of the tragedy. Here Aristotle discusses the stylistic elements of tragedy, particularly metaphor. The ability to use metaphors, he believed, implied “an eye for resemblance” that was crucial in dramatic art.
• Melody. Aristotle saw the chorus as an actor in the play that should be fully integrated into the story.
• Spectacle is everything that is seen and heard during the play: costumes, scenery, and even special effects. Aristotle felt however, that it was the job of the playwright, and not the stage machinist, to move the audience to emotion.
Gustav Freytag (1816–1895), a German critic and novelist, modified Aristotle’s triangle, adding two additional elements. The first was the complication, which is a rising action, ascending from the lower left-hand corner to the higher middle of the triangle. The falling action he placed descending from the highest middle to the lowest right-hand corner of the triangle. He used all five elements to analyze the structure of drama, calling them dramatic arcs. Freytag’s pyramid can be useful as a guide while when you’re working on any plays of any length.
• Introduction (or Exposition)—This is when we first meet the characters of the play. It’s when the protagonist and antagonist are introduced and the play’s conflict begins to reveal itself. We see where the play takes place, and the time and mood of the piece. During this initial arc we get some sense of how the characters interconnect in the play.
• Rising Action—During this arc things start to perk. The conflict becomes more apparent, and at this point we should be feeling the tension. Obstacles may appear, further blocking the protagonist from his goal.
• Climax—This is the point in the play where things dramatically change. Depending on the play you’ve written, they can get better or worse. This is the highest point in the pyramid.
• Falling Action—A resolution begins to appear in the conflict between our protagonist and antagonist. Generally the protagonist will either win or lose to his or her foe in this dramatic arc. It is here that we see that the climax or the main action is over and the story of the play starts to come to its conclusion.
• Conclusion—Sometimes called the catastrophe, this arc is the end of the play’s story. In some plays the protagonist achieves his or her goal, as so often happens in comedies. When this doesn’t happen, then quite often what we have is a tragedy. The conflict that we set up should now be resolved.